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West Siders don't want to build new schools as much as East Siders do, Cleveland schools chief says

Cleveland school district's Paul Dunbar site before groundbreaking.JPG

Construction of a new Paul Dunbar elementary school in Ohio City was an exception in Cleveland's 13-year building project that built twice as much new school on the East Side as on the West. New plans won't change that imbalance, the district says, because West Siders would rather maintain existing buildings than tear them down for new ones.
(Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer)

Gordon said the West Side will get an extra share of schools that are "refreshed" -- repaired and updated.

Plans headed to the school board are the latest update to the district's long-running school construction project. The program started in 2001 after voters passed the Issue 14 bond to repair, renovate and replace aging schools.

Since then, the district has used the money to build or significantly renovated 40 schools, including three high schools now under construction -- John Marshall, Max Hayes and the Cleveland School of the Arts.

Patrick Zohn, the district's chief operating officer, said on Friday he was still making revisions. Without a final plan, exact totals of what kind of work will happen in each neighborhood is not available.

Last week Gordon did tell the school board and the Cleveland Transformation Alliance -- Mayor Frank Jackson's school choice panel -- that West Side residents have not campaigned for new schools as vigorously as residents on the East Side. West Siders, on the whole, want to keep their current buildings.

"On the West Side, we've seen more questions and concerns about how to protect the assets that exist," Gordon told the alliance.

He told the school board: "In the far west and west side and moving east, we saw less of an appetite to fully replace schools."

He said that pattern helped guide the planning. Because the state will only help pay for a limited number of new schools or major renovations, Gordon said he is directing that money where new schools are wanted.

The commission said recently that declining East Side neighborhoods are to receive more new schools than their populations justify, and it repeated the assertion in a full report released on Saturday.

BAC Administrator James Darr avoided making East Side vs. West Side generalizations, but noted in the report that the Lee-Miles, Central-Kinsman-Mt. Pleasant, and Glenville-University-Hough neighborhood clusters would receive too many new school seats. The Kamm's Corner-Bellaire-Puritas, Detroit-Shoreway-Cudell-Edgewater, and Old Brooklyn-Brooklyn Center clusters, and to a lesser extent, the Ohio City-Tremont cluster, would receive too few.

Gordon said he considered building more new schools on the West Side, including replacing Luis Aggasiz, William Cullen Bryant, Benjamin Franklin, Clara Westropp and Wilbur Wright, but heard from community groups, city councilmen, in polls and in winter and spring community meetings that residents in those neighborhoods preferred to keep existing buildings.

The fate of the Tremont Montessori and Charles Mooney elementary were still undecided, he said, because of mixed opinions about what to do.

If West Siders had been clear about wanting new buildings, Gordon said, "we would have allocated differently."

And it's a sizeable amount of money. Ohio will pay for two thirds of all approved construction in Cleveland.

With all of the state-supported seats now allocated, work on remaining schools will be paid for by Cleveland taxpayers alone. That's where Gordon's "refresh" and maintain plan comes in.

Gordon said the district is looking at spending millions in district money on building updates. He said if the district could have spent $5 million to receive $10 million from the state to build a $15 million elementary school, it can spend $5 million to fix an existing building.

The Bond Accountability Commission was unsure whether these repairs will be sufficient.

"The extent of the improvements is a potential area of concern for residents of neighborhoods which have enrollment that would justify construction of new schools, but which are not proposed to get them," the BAC report reads. "Will the improvements bring modern plumbing, technology, lighting, heating and cooling, or does "refresh" mean a coat of paint, deep cleaning and some landscaping?"

The Plain Dealer will provide live coverage on Cleveland.com Monday night as the school board discusses the building plans. We will post updates from the 6 p.m. meeting at district headquarters, 1111 Superior Avenue.

Gordon said carrying out the plan depends on voter approval of an extension of the construction bond this November.

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